


Year Walking

by ScullyLovesQueequeg



Category: The X-Files
Genre: College, Complete, F/F, F/M, Gen, Multi, Rituals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-22 00:23:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2487605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScullyLovesQueequeg/pseuds/ScullyLovesQueequeg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder while on Spring Break with his girlfriend Phoebe, decides to give an ancient ritual a try--supposedly it gives one the power to see the future, but he may not like what he sees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Year Walking

“There is a custom, when churches are built,” Our guide says, her lids lowering as she continues her tale, “that the builders make a pit under the altar, and bury an animal carcass with the heart of a criminal sewn inside. Most of the time, they use goats but sometimes, they use pigs. If they don’t have a criminal, they would use a live animal instead. The belief is that the animal would become a church grim, and if there is a criminal, he’d be a servant for a year. Every year, if there is a criminal, he is buried in the churchyard and if there is none, then they bury a child.”

 

This is my girlfriend’s way of trying to scare me. These things don’t scare me because I live for it all. I glance over at the old church that the three of us are standing in front of, and the graveyard that is sprawled out beside it. There is nothing even remotely interesting about it. The look on my face must betray me because the girl guiding us frowns. My girlfriend is standing at my side, eying my reaction to the tale, and probably being disappointed that I don’t seem to give a shit.

I don’t.

The people that attend church are usually crazy so it does not come as a surprise that they have rituals to reflect this.

"Anyway," The guide continues, trying to recapture my interest again, "the church grim protects the church from evil and anyone with any bad intentions. But there is another thing he does: He can see the future, and if you listen to me, I’ll tell you how he can tell you this too."

I glance over to my girlfriend who smiles and gives me an encouraging nod. We’re on spring break in Sweden, and instead of being out having fun, we’re standing outside of a tiny church in the small village of Vedtorp. It’s somewhere outside of Gothenburg. She promises it’s worth my time but I’m starting to think it’s all bullshit.

"Fine. What do I have to do?" I ask, and the girl smiles.

"Well, it’s simple, really. You can’t eat or drink anything for the whole day, you’ve got to sit in darkness the whole day, and you cannot speak or see anyone. At the stroke of midnight, you step out of the cabin, and make your way from the cabin to the church, passing through the cemetery. You also have to walk around the church in a very specific manner, and then blow into the keyhole. Once you do that, the church grim will appear to you. Then you’ve got to speak into his heart and tell him what you wish to know and if you do all this, you’ll be granted the chance to see the future."

"If it’s so simple, why don’t you do it?" I asked, and she laughed.

"Well, it’s really dangerous. I mean the things you’ll see will try to kill you. People have stopped doing this for a long time." The girl says, and I can’t tell if she’s being serious or kidding. It sounds like a tourist trap to me, the kind that usually resulted in a practical joke. I cast a sideways glance at my girlfriend but she’s looking at the girl with a hungry expression. No doubt, the idea of me dying alone in the forest makes her horny. My girlfriend would set my tie on fire, while I was wearing it if it guaranteed to get her off. It was not a big leap to imagine a 3 hour orgasm if I suddenly expired in the forest. She was strange like that.

"How do you know about it?" I venture again, using my forefinger to slide my glasses back up along the bridge of my nose.

"My grandfather told me. He lost his brother that way. His brother was killed by one of the creatures he saw. He told me that his brother encountered a beautiful woman, with long blonde hair and a beautiful figure, but with deer antlers coming from on top of her head, and wearing a beautiful evening gown that dipped low in the back. He said it was called a Skogsrået." She says, with a shrug. Now my girlfriend looks at me, to gauge my interest. Her eyes fall upon my crotch, and I wonder if she’s expecting me to be excited over the idea of some sexy forest lady.

I’m not.

A Skogsrået. Supposedly she lures men to have sex with her and then marry her. She feasts on blood and those who gave it willingly are under her protection though those who did were in danger of being completely devoured, too. An amazing lay, I’m sure. Interesting, but not exciting. Not sexy enough. It needs more work to do something for me. The story sounded bullshit because if he died in the forest, how did her grandfather know?

I pretend not to know what she means when she mentions the Skogsrået because this sounds a little more exciting than getting fucked up on bomb shots and Absolut. Not that I didn’t want to do that—the semester was long and I felt as though I deserved to party after dealing with Professor Fucking Forgetful, the idiot professor of my Abnormal Psychology class. ‘Parapsychology is not a real field’ my ass. Plus, going back to school with an entertaining story about how I fucked a Skogsrået would also help bolster my reputation a little bit. I was already somewhat of a joke with my peers who had started a rumor (that at the time I thought was baseless) that my girlfriend liked to fool around on me. So all in all, it didn’t seem like a bad idea at the time.

"Okay," I finally say, adjusting my shoulder strapped bag and looking around. "When can I do this?"

"Well, it can only be done on holidays and special occasions, usually on New Years, but you’re really lucky because we have a super moon this year. So tomorrow night is the super moon. Come back tonight, and I’ll set you up with everything. You’ll have one more chance to back out." The girl says, and I nod, putting my hands in my pockets.

"I want to do this. Show me the cabin. How will I know how many times and the pattern for walking around the church?" I ask, and my girlfriend looks eager for the answer.

"It will come to you. You’ll just know." The girl says and she smiles in a way that makes me want to fly back home.

"Will it be dangerous?" My girlfriend asks, and there is a smile that passes between the girls. They probably want me to die. What a surprise.

"Don’t you go trying to stop me now," I say sarcastically, but they both ignore me.

"Oh, very. I feel bad he’s unarmed but rules are rules," The girl says, in a way that implies she doesn’t feel bad at all. My girlfriend grins.

So, an American guy, a Swedish girl and a British devil all head out from the hostel the American and Brit are staying and they drive to a cabin in the middle of West Bumblefuck, miles away from where they are staying in Gothenburg. The original plan (to party in Gothenburg, go to Malmö and then head to Copenhagen) is dashed. They get out the car, leave the American with his bike and exit, holding hands and giggling to themselves. The American goes into the cabin and locks himself up for a full day.

When midnight strikes, I’m only made aware by the distant ringing of the bell from the church. It’s completely dark in the room, and I nearly kill myself leaving it, but when I step out, I know it worked because there is something off and I’m not sure what it is. I’m expecting to find a bunch of people in ski masks and bats to beat the shit out of me, take my wallet and run off. But no one is there. My bike isn’t even there. I’m not really surprised by this, because my luck just so happened to always be that bad. It was probably the 4th time I had to replace that bike. So I don’t pay it much mind, because what else is new? The forest is dark, and there’s an uncertain bubbling in my belly that reminds me that I haven’t eaten, and so shoving my hands into my pockets, I start walking away from the cabin.

The air feels different, I’m not really sure how to describe it. It feels… alive. There is a shimmering in the air, and I remember that the girl, who’s name I never caught, had mentioned that there were monsters. I don’t even know where the church is. I just start walking past trees, which are marked with symbols and runes.

It feels like forever and I begin to wonder if my girlfriend had planned this. She seemed too friendly with the girl who I presumed she had just met today, but in hindsight, watching them walk off hand in hand made me realize they were probably hoping for the worst for me. I wouldn’t’ve have been surprised to find that she was the girl my girlfriend was writing to all the time. It made a lot of sense that way. I guess the rumors were true, then.

Not really sure where to head, I close my eyes and try to recall the scene earlier when the girl was explaining the church grim. The church that we had been standing by forms clearly in my mind. I recall the fence, the leaves, the blades of grass—everything. When I open my eyes, my heart almost jumps out of my fucking body.

Standing in front of me is this boar. It’s got tusks, and flames for a mane that extends to a singular, but broad strip along it’s back. It’s huge, and comes up to my waist. It’s eyes are like fire, and it’s mouth, is a golden orb that shines brightly. In the second it takes me to recognize it as a threat, it lunges at me, and I dive off to the side. Without even looking back, I get up and start running, thanking god silently that those years of running from bullies finally paid off. I can hear it behind me, it’s muffle squealing sounding more like a woman screaming in the night. I have no idea where I am running to and I hear the sudden sound of rushing water and blindly run in that direction.

It pays off because soon we come across a river, and without thinking, I jump in, and the boar is left circling the bank, desperate to get me. I let the river carry me downstream until the boar is out of sight, and I end up in a lake. I start climbing out of the water when something grabs my foot and pulls me under.

Once, when I was a smaller boy, and perhaps much more wiser than I was now, I heard a story about a horse. It was a long horse, with many, many legs, like Sleipnir. I remember that the older neighborhood kid told me it was the Brook Horse, and that if you played by the river, it would drown you. I never played in the river after that.

I had always thought it was bullshit he made up until one day, I found a classmate of mine crying in the lobby of the student activity building. I asked her what was wrong, and as she sobbed into my waistcoat, she said tearfully,

"My brother—he drowned to death—they said something lured him to the water and then he was dragged in."

All this goes through my mind as the nameless, faceless, formless entity drags me deeper into the lake. I don’t even bother thrashing because I know I’m going to die.

When I wake up, I’m laying in a bed of soft grass, and there is a woman sitting nearby. When she sees I’m awake, she gets visibly happy and I slowly start trying to piece together what happened.

“Oh please don’t be upset," She says in Swedish, I assume, and she stands. She has pale skin, that almost glows, and her figure is slender, though she is well endowed where it matters. She gives the impression of being tall without really being such—it’s the antlers that sit on her head that lend to the illusion. Various birds sit on the tines of her antlers. It’s a goddamn Skogsrået. It isn’t hard to see why she often times, she finds people who were willing to give her blood. If the circumstances weren’t so strange, I would have done it myself. I would have had sex with her, too. I slowly sit up.

"I’m sorry, I don’t speak Swedish," I say, and she nods, and sits at the foot of the bed.

"That’s okay, it’s been a while since I have seen a human, and I forget they don’t all come from this land," She says. Her voice is melodic and sweet, and I regret letting my girlfriend talk me into this. I’m not quite scared yet, but I am making my way there, now that I can tell that I was successful in actually pulling off the stupid ritual. I don’t want to start panicking, lest she starts getting agitated herself, so I just kindly nod and smile a little. She smiles back at me, showing elongated fangs, but when she realizes how this looks, she covers them with a pale hand. She’s self conscious, and I love it. I want to marry her.

"What happened to me? The last thing I remember is that I was being chased, and then I ran to the river and let it carry me to the lake… Then I tried to swim out and… Something pulled me under." I say, taking note of my surroundings. It seems as though we are in a large tree that has been hollowed out. Obviously the tree is large enough to contain the both of us, but I don’t know any other way to describe it. I couldn’t make this up if I tried.

"Oh yes, there are so many spirits here. They only want to protect this part of the forest, which is ours. And I’m guessing when you jumped into the lake, you encountered another, trying to drown you," She explains, moving closer to me, and running her fingers through my hair affectionately. I want to pull away but I’m scared of angering her so I stay still and allow her to stroke my hair. Her hands are cold, and remind me of my girlfriend’s in the morning, even after she has her hands entangled in mine all night. "It’s nothing personal. She does that to everyone. You’re year walking, aren’t you? You’re the first I’ve seen in a very long time. And you are also very good looking. We could have a lot of fun if you decide to stay here."

With so many words to take in, my mind was throbbing. I don’t know how to feel about her. The longer I stare, the more I find something attractive about her, like the curve of her neck. I try not to stare for too long because if I do, I’ll try to fuck her. I really wouldn’t put it past myself to try and fuck some strange girl because she had antlers.

“Thanks, I guess, but I have a girlfriend.” I say, and she lets me go, allowing me to sit up. Slowly, I push off the bed and stand on unsteady feet. My head is heavy, and so are all my limbs, but she doesn’t stop me. Here is a beautiful creature, resembling a woman where it matters, and I turn her down for my girlfriend, who is probably getting eaten out by a girl she’s been probably talking to for months. My loyalty is only surpassed by my stupidity.

“You have to get to the church,” The girl (can I even call her that?) says, standing as well. I’m looking for my shoes and spot them by the wooden ornate door, which I had failed to notice upon my initial visual survey of the room. “If you go out there, you’ll be killed.”

“It can’t be worse than the things that have already tried to kill me.” I say, sitting on the ground to put my shoes on. She only sighs.

“Please don’t leave me here alone. You’re not going to like your future.”

“How do you know?” I ask her, casting a sidelong glance that is upside-down, since I am in the process of putting my shoes on.

“Because, I can see your future. It’s lonely. It’s filled with a lot of grey men and the stench of death. I see that you’ll be enclosed in a tiny prison, in the basement of a building, forgotten about.”

I don’t listen to her. It all sounds like bullshit to me.

When I am done with my sneakers, I leave through the door, and find myself outside of the cabin once more. I am alone, and cautiously take a step forward. The air still carries a strangeness to it, but I notice that it’s quiet.

No, that’s not right. There’s singing.

It’s faint at first, but alluring, and I decide to follow it, in the hopes of finding some answers. There is something about this voice that seems familiar, but I ignore that aspect, and follow it, until I reach a cobblestone wall. Running my fingers over the rounded stones, I make my way to where the wall begins. There is an iron gate, locked with a very ornate design of a deer on it. I can’t help but stare because it’s so detailed. The singing that lead me to the gate stops, and the Skogsrået I had met earlier is behind the gate, braiding her hair. It takes her a moment, but when she notices me, she approaches the gate. How the fuck she got there so fast is beyond me but I don’t care anymore because I just want to go home.

“Last chance to back out and come live with me.” She says in a singsong voice, that is excessively saccharine to the point where my teeth ache.

“No thank you. I just want to get back to my girlfriend.”

“Well, I don’t know if you’ll still be calling her your girlfriend after tonight,” She says, her eyes going from that strange electric blue hue they had earlier, to a white that opaques her vision completely and shimmers with an iridescence that gives me chills. She spaces out for a moment, looking off into the distance, and when the color seeps back into her eyes, and they return to the way they were before, she glances at me. I look away because I feel like she is looking through me, and it hurts, somehow.

“Why?” I finally ask, when it’s apparent she isn’t going to tell me. That would be too fucking easy.

“Oh, well, because she’s sleeping with another girl right now. She spent all her time with this girl, and they’re being really intimate. They don’t plan to come back for you.” She says. I don’t believe this, because it’s too specific, but there’s nothing I can do if it’s true, so I just shrug. I really can’t afford doubt the word of a girl with antlers coming out of her head like some kind of demented looking deer.

“Well, I can’t go home without her, even if she’s cheating on me…” I say and she makes a noise of disapproval. She opens the gate for me regardless though, and I step through, into the churchyard.

“You don’t seem to be upset, or surprised.” She says, and this is true, I’m not surprised. Hurt, yeah, but not surprised. Part of me felt as though she was always doing me a favor. I would be lying if I said she was not my first girlfriend, but I knew that I was probably one of many, to her.

“Well, I can understand why she wouldn’t want to be with me. I’m sure I’m not the most entertaining person to be around. I don’t enjoy parties, and I prefer sneaking off campus at night to see if maybe I can see a UFO or something. And I know I’m really difficult to deal with, because I don’t—I don’t like being told what to do, I guess. Oh, I’m a horror to go out with, since I subscribe to so many different conspiracies, too. I can go on all day, and embarrass everyone. Most people hate spending more than a minute around me, but my girlfriend… she’s the only person who listens to me when I see something. She doesn’t call me crazy… or dismiss my ideas. I don’t think she believes them but at least she listens. I mean, once, I saw a ghost outside, out on the quad, and chased it… eventually, it disappeared, but she was the only person who listened to me. I mean, she listens to me ramble about vampires, and werewolves, and is the only person who’ll sit with me during a monster movie marathon, or stay up late with me when I’m going through my insomnia… I mean, she does shitty things sometimes, but… I still love her, because no one’s perfect, you know?” I explain, and all the while, the Skogsrået is still listening to me, which is probably only the second time in my life. I feel embarrassed, because I sound like a complete mess, and I can’t really rationalize her behavior fully. I just don’t like the idea of being alone, though, and I’d rather put up with her shit than being alone.

“It sounds like you do love her. I hope that you two work it out. If you don’t, I’ll still be here,” She says with a friendly, and understanding smile. “There’s one last thing you have to do before you can see your future and go home. You have to wake up the Church Grim. You do that by circling the church 3 times, and blowing into the keyhole every time you pass it. Then you go inside. He should be waiting for you inside.”

I start heading closer to the church when I notice she isn’t following me.

“You’re not coming with me?” I ask, and she has one arm folded over her chest and the other touching her chin thoughtfully.

“No, I don’t much care for the grim. He cares a little too much for me, so I keep a distance, because he can’t really leave the church. Good luck, I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for. I don’t think you and I will meet again, but if we do, I would love to show you the old windmill. I think you would appreciate it.” She says, and it dawns on me that I’m nearly at the end of this strange ordeal, and it makes me strangely emotional. I don’t enjoy saying goodbye because I never know when I’ll next see someone.

I start walking around the church, being mindful of my steps, for no particular reason, other than I don’t feel comfortable walking around the church at all. I make it all the way around the church the first time, and approach the door of the church and blow into the keyhole. The bell that is situated in the small tower chimes once. I must have done something right. I do this two more times, and each time, the bell rings, and then on the last try, the door opens slowly, giving me enough time to move away, lest I risk being hit in the face. With my luck, there was a very good likelihood of this happening.

The church is colder than the air outside when I step in. The heavy wooden door closes behind me, and I realize that this is the end of the line. The air in the church is stale, like the way it smells in an old museum, and I remember when I was a child, my dad took me and my sister to the Cloisters Museum in New York. In fact, the church itself reminds me of the tiny church they had on display in the museum. The pews are made of wood, and I can see things carved in, presumably in Swedish.

I’m standing in the middle of the small chapel, in the aisle between the pews. Over to the right, is a stairway that leads presumably to the bell tower, or the rectory, and the right is a little crevice, in which there are candles burning. The walls contain stained glass paintings of Christ in various stages of his life, and the front of the church has the usual altar, the tabernacle and cross. Off to the right is a large basin, in which I’m guessing is where they baptize people. It’s not impressive to me. The chapel at my college is more impressive, and it’s not even half the size of this church.

“Hello?” I’m tired of waiting, already. I want to get this over with, so I can go back to my room and get wasted. I open my mouth to repeat myself, but then I hear a noise, like ragged breathing. I look over to the right, and I can hear a pair of cloven feet walking down the steps, and finally, when it comes out into the open, I almost jump out of my fucking body again.

It’s not a person.

To say it was a person would be an insult to the race as a whole.

It’s tall—taller than me, and I’m like 6’2”. It wears a cape, that covers it’s body mostly, because all I can see is it’s head, it’s hands and feet. But… it doesn’t really have hands. It has legs, like a goat. So are it’s feet, which are also, like a goat. In fact, it’s head is most like a goat wearing a skull.

But it isn’t a goat.

It has a pair of horns, the kind that stick out and bend backwards, like an Ibex. The skull it’s wearing is of a predatory animal, like a bear, or something. It leans on a large stick that was more supportive than ceremonial—though the stick is adorned with skulls, too. It slowly walks to the middle of altar and turns to face me, and beckons me forward.

I am a smart guy. This thing looks like some kind of demon, which I had no doubt that it was, despite this being a church. Normally if a demonic entity tells me to come forward, I would just tell it to fuck off and walk away.

I walk towards it. When I’m close enough, it points towards the basin.

“If you want to see the future, you’ll have to give some of your blood.” It says, and I frown. Always a catch. Still, I am proud of myself for making it this far. Go me! So I walk over to the basin, and pat myself down. I have a pocket knife, so I prick the end of my finger, and let a couple drops fall in the basin.

The scene unfolds before me, like a movie, almost and I can just imagine some guy from the 1800s getting unnerved by the phenomenon. The first thing I see when I look into the basin is my girlfriend and her friend. They make out like women do at the beginning of most of the pornos I’ve seen.

This gets me.

The idea of her cheating on me with someone else had not bothered me before all that much, because it was hypothetical, but somehow, this basin of water, which is now slightly pink by the drops of blood I poured in, seems to be telling the truth. I let out a sigh which makes the water ripple, and the image fades, and a new one arises. I see a building, that looks vaguely familiar to me, and when I take a closer look, I realize it’s the J. Edgar Hoover building in Washington, DC. I see myself slightly older, in a suit, walking into the building, and I smile, a little. OK, I’m going to work for the Feds. I’m am comforted by this because now I know that my work in class finally is paying off. The water starts to ripple again, and the image fades, but a new one starts to form. This image is of a woman. She’s got mousey brown hair, the kind that frizzles when exposed to moisture. She looks young, and I can still see some of the baby fat in her cheeks. She’s got on a brown suit with plaid pattern in it, and she is looking around in the grass, while I’m in the background, by the shore of a lake. She finds something, and walks over to me, and we stand close—dangerously so, and I get the impression that she’s probably someone I really care about but haven’t met yet, since I have no recollection of her. She looks like she’s about to say something, when something grabs me from behind and drags me out of the church. It’s the church grim, and he makes a motion for me to leave. Just beyond the gates of the churchyard is a white wall of fog, and I walk through.

When I come out of the fog, I’m outside the cabin again, and it’s just a little after 7. My bike is leaned against the wall outside and with a small sigh, I climb on my bike and begin to ride to the hostel where my girlfriend and I were staying.

When I arrive upstairs, she is there with the girl, and they are sleeping together, curled up close. Limbs are entangled together, and they are both wearing shirts, socks and are in their underwear too. My girlfriend’s dildo is on the nightstand, and it still has a condom over it. She always jokes that it’s a force to be reckoned with, but in retrospect, whenever she tried to use it on herself, she ended up giving up halfway and tossing it across the room. The floor is littered with plastic cups and cigarette butts, and it looks like the two of them have had a party. I just gather my stuff and leave again to get breakfast because I’m too wired to sleep.

The café is practically empty and I enjoy my breakfast alone, watching people on their way to work or where ever they head. I’m not really worried about my girlfriend or her friend, but my mind is still swirling about the ritual and the vision I saw. I remember the Skogsrået I met, and wonder if she’s upset that I left her. I know what it’s like to be so lonely, and I can only imagine a girl like that was probably very popular at one time, when people believed in that sort of thing. I think about this, and I almost want to go back, and fuck her once. Almost.

Despite my indifference to the situation with my girlfriend, I dread going back to the hostel. I take my time, stopping to talk to anyone I see, and saying hello and goodbye to anything that has eyes. When I finally reach the hostel, I head up to the room, and find my girlfriend and her friend in the middle of cleaning up. They’re both still only in their pajamas. They don’t notice me at first, but when they do, my girlfriend comes over and gives me a hug.

"Fox, I’m so glad you’re okay! Stina and I were just going to go and get you now!" She says, pulling away from me and standing near her friend, who now I know is named Stina.

I decide not to tell her what I know, or what I suspect about her and Stina. Instead, I make a noise of a noncommittal nature.

"So, I’m guessing the ritual didn’t work…?" Stina asks, her smile reminding me of a shark, predatory and insincere. She looks like the kind of woman that would probably chop my cock off if it would please my girlfriend. My girlfriend makes people feel as though they are very special. I’d know.

"Why do you say that?" I ask, and she makes a gesture to the clock.

"Well, because it’s only been a couple hours since we left you there, and you came back. You didn’t even stay the full time in the cabin. Did you get scared?" Stina sounds concerned, but there’s an undercurrent of smug satisfaction that I can hear in the silence when she’s done asking.

"No, I was there the full 24 hours, like you said. But I guess it doesn’t matter. I have a question for you, though—Stina, right? Why aren’t you wearing pants? Did you sleep here last night?"

"Fox…" My girlfriend says this in a disapproving manner.

"Yeah, I slept here last night because my home is pretty far, and Phoebe was kind enough to let me stay here and keep her company since you were doing your ritual." I take a seat in the bunk that is opposite the one the girls had been sleeping on. Stina crosses the room and finds her pants, which she slips into effortlessly. My girlfriend decides she likes the freedom that comes from not wearing pants, and doesn’t put hers on, but she flops on her bed.

“What happened then?” She asks, and I fall over, into the bed. I stare at the frame of the bed above me, and I say slowly,

“Says I graduate and get a degree. I move back to the states, and fox hunting becomes illegal. That was it.”

“Did you happen to see anything useful, like lottery numbers?” My girlfriend asks, indifferently. I can tell that she doesn’t believe me.

“Not really.”

After everything that happened to me in the forest, I don’t want to share anything with her or Stina. I think they can sense something’s changed, but they don’t know that I know what they were doing. My girlfriend and I spend a couple of more days in Gothenburg, with Stina, and then when we head to Malmö, and Copenhagen before we finally go back to Oxford.

At Oxford, she finally comes clean.

“Listen, Fox, I have to tell you, while you were off doing your ritual, I slept with Stina. I’ve been writing to her for months now, and I had been really dying to meet her, and maybe try something, but I didn’t want to break it off with you because, I love you Fox, and I wasn’t sure if she was the real thing. And now, after meeting her, and spending that time with her, and you, I realized that it wasn’t meant to be with her, and me, and so I want us to start with a fresh slate.” She tells me, while we’re having lunch at the dinning hall.

“It’s okay, Phoebe. I’m not upset. I would prefer though, if you called me Mulder, and not Fox, though. Only my parents, and friends call me Fox.”

“What are you trying to say?” She asks, and I look over from where I had been eating some half frozen peas and carrots.

“It’s over. I don’t want to do this with you anymore. I forgive you, and I’m glad that you love me, and part of me will love you too, but… I can’t do this anymore. You’re not happy. I’m not happy. You’re sleeping with other people behind my back, and I think I deserve better. So… no hard feelings.” I say, and she just sighs and walks off.

So I go back to my food. Maybe my response was pretty shitty, but I didn’t want to deal with her shit anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> yes, it was inspired by the game of the same name.


End file.
